{"id":124376,"date":"2016-02-07T14:02:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-07T12:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devrri.freshlemon.ro\/news-and-current-affairs\/newsflash\/january-31-february-6-124376.html"},"modified":"2024-02-19T10:45:06","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T08:45:06","slug":"january-31-february-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/en\/news-and-current-affairs\/the-week-in-review\/january-31-february-6-id124376.html","title":{"rendered":"January 31 &#8211; February 6"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong class=cms-bold>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\nTalks on the upcoming local elections in Romania<\/strong>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>Romania&#8217;s technocratic&#13;<br \/>\nprime minister Dacian Ciolos on Monday met the representatives of parliamentary&#13;<br \/>\nparties to discuss a proposal by the National Liberal Party on the return to a&#13;<br \/>\ntwo-round system for the election of mayors. The Liberals say this would give&#13;<br \/>\nmore power to voters and that the current one-round system benefits big&#13;<br \/>\nparties. Their proposal is only supported by the People&#8217;s Movement and the&#13;<br \/>\nRomanian Socialist Party. The Social Democratic Party, the National Union for&#13;<br \/>\nthe Progress of Romania, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania&#13;<br \/>\nand the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats are opposed to changing the law at&#13;<br \/>\nthis point, saying this would run counter to a Constitutional Court decision&#13;<br \/>\nforbidding the amendment of election laws, less than a year to go before&#13;<br \/>\nelections. <\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>This is what the prime minister said after talks with the&#13;<br \/>\nparliamentary parties:<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p> I will&#13;<br \/>\nnot accept that the government be  used&#13;<br \/>\nas an instrument for political parties to achieve their own interests. I think&#13;<br \/>\nthis debate should continue so as to be clear about what we want in the future.&#13;<br \/>\nFrom what I see, the parties themselves do not know exactly what they want. My&#13;<br \/>\nconclusion is that there is a majority in Parliament that does not want the&#13;<br \/>\nrules of the game to change at this point.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The National&#13;<br \/>\nLiberal Party says it will not give up on its proposal to have the two-round&#13;<br \/>\nsystem used in local elections. In another move, the Social Democratic Party&#13;<br \/>\nand the National Union for the Progress of Romania on Thursday signed a&#13;<br \/>\nprotocol of collaboration during the local and parliamentary elections. The&#13;<br \/>\nSocial Democrats wish to sign a similar agreement with the Alliance of Liberals&#13;<br \/>\nand Democrats. <\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p><strong class=cms-bold>Former interior minister Gabriel Oprea loses his immunity,&#13;<br \/>\nwhile the Prosecutor General, Tiberiu Nitu, resigns<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>The former&#13;<br \/>\ninterior minister and senator of the National Union for the Progress of Romania&#13;<br \/>\nGabriel Oprea has lost his immunity. The Senate approved a request by the&#13;<br \/>\nNational Anticorruption Directorate to start a criminal prosecution against Oprea&#13;<br \/>\nover his benefiting from allegedly illegal police escort in a case that&#13;<br \/>\nresulted in the death of a policeman. Gabriel Oprea is accused of abuse of&#13;<br \/>\noffice to obtain undue benefits while serving as minister. Oprea insists he is&#13;<br \/>\ninnocent. Romania&#8217;s Prosecutor General Tiberiu Nitu has resigned over an&#13;<br \/>\ninvestigation into the abusive use of official police escort. He, too, says he&#13;<br \/>\nis innocent, but that he resigned so that his name and office should not be&#13;<br \/>\nassociated with a situation that would harm the image of the General&#13;<br \/>\nProsecutor&#8217;s Office. By law, only the president, the prime minister and the two&#13;<br \/>\nParliament speakers are entitled to police escort, while ministers can only use&#13;<br \/>\nit in emergency cases. <\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p><strong class=cms-bold>Bucharest hails the United States&#8217; announcement to boost&#13;<br \/>\nsignificantly the 2017 defence budget to counteract threats in Eastern Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>The Romanian&#13;<br \/>\nauthorities have hailed the US&#8217;s announcement about the four-fold increase of&#13;<br \/>\nthe 2017 budget for the European Reassurance Initiative, saying this is a&#13;<br \/>\nconfirmation of the US&#8217;s strong commitment to European security, thus&#13;<br \/>\nconsolidating NATO measures for collective defence and discouraging the risk&#13;<br \/>\nfactors. The implementation of the measures announced by Washington will&#13;<br \/>\ncontribute significantly to consolidating the security of Romania and the other&#13;<br \/>\nallies in the face of the security challenges in the region. The Romanian&#13;<br \/>\nambassador to the US, George Maior, says the additional allocation of resources&#13;<br \/>\nto counteract threats in Eastern Europe is good news for Romania, which can&#13;<br \/>\nact as a partner for the US in discouraging threats. The Pentagon has said the&#13;<br \/>\nUS will significantly consolidate its military presence in Eastern Europe with&#13;<br \/>\ntroops, tanks and artillery to counteract the threat posed by Russia.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p><strong class=cms-bold>The European Commission has improved its estimates about&#13;<br \/>\nRomania&#8217;s economic growth in 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>Romania&#8217;s&#13;<br \/>\neconomic growth is expected to peak at 4.2% in 2016 and slightly decrease to&#13;<br \/>\n3.7% in 2017, according to the winter economic forecast published by the&#13;<br \/>\nEuropean Commission on Thursday. Last autumn, the Commission forecast a growth&#13;<br \/>\nrate of 4.1% in 2016 and 3.6% next year. According to estimates, domestic&#13;<br \/>\nconsumption remains the main driving engine of economic growth, while the net&#13;<br \/>\ncontribution of exports remains negative. The VAT cut from 24 to 20% as of&#13;<br \/>\nJanuary and the rise in the minimum wage as of May will stimulate consumption&#13;<br \/>\nand economic growth. <\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The European Commission warns, however, of a series of&#13;<br \/>\nrisks, despite a robust economic growth. As a result of lower taxes and higher&#13;<br \/>\nspending, the budget deficit will grow substantially from 1% in 2015 to 4% next&#13;<br \/>\nyear. The inflation rate will also grow in the second part of the year as a&#13;<br \/>\nresult of salary rises. The European Commission forecast is similar to that&#13;<br \/>\npublished by Coface, a company specialising in credit risk management, which&#13;<br \/>\nexpects a 4.2% economic growth rate for Romania in 2016. The World Bank has&#13;<br \/>\nalso improved its forecasts for this year, with the Romanian economy expected&#13;<br \/>\nto grow by 3.9%. <\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A look at the headline-making events this past week<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40944],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-124376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-week-in-review"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>January 31 - February 6 - Radio Romania International<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/en\/news-and-current-affairs\/the-week-in-review\/january-31-february-6-id124376.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"January 31 - February 6 - Radio Romania International\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A look at the headline-making events this past week\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/en\/news-and-current-affairs\/the-week-in-review\/january-31-february-6-id124376.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Radio Romania International\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-07T12:02:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-02-19T08:45:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/eveniment-top-640_med_med.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rom\u00e2nia Interna\u021bional\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rom\u00e2nia Interna\u021bional\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rri.ro\\\/en\\\/news-and-current-affairs\\\/the-week-in-review\\\/january-31-february-6-id124376.html#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rri.ro\\\/en\\\/news-and-current-affairs\\\/the-week-in-review\\\/january-31-february-6-id124376.html\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rom\u00e2nia Interna\u021bional\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rri.ro\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/18fac491bccbfe149b92aea77ad60abd\"},\"headline\":\"January 31 &#8211; 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